It has occurred to me on occasion that we basically live on a (throw you fingers in the air  in an exaggerated, quotation mark-mimicking gesture) “Religious Compound.”

This may conjure up all kinds of peculiar visions of what that must look like.  Are we talking Heaven’s Gate, The Branch Davidian’s, or the Rajaneeshpuram?

No, absolutely not, and hay-ell no.

But do we all live in basically the same area?  Well, yeah mostly.  Do we spend a lot of time together?  Yep.  Do we have a common purpose?  Absolutely—Serve the underserved people of Honduras in the name of Jesus, sharing His love and grace.

So if that’s your criteria for a ‘religious compound,’ Mr. Smarty Pants, then ok, I guess it is, and we do live on one.  But it sure has been a wonderful experience.

It can certainly be a challenge to live together with the same people that you work with;  that you play with;  that you hang out with and watch football and movies with; that you go to church with;  that you struggle being uncomfortable, hot, and tired with;  That you pour all your heart and passion into your service with.

But we have been so fortunate to have such quality people surrounding us (Hebrews 12: 1-2), and we truly consider every person here a dear friend.  I’m gonna get all nostalgic now…  I love you guys!!

We all have our moments of trial, but that’s normal.  I’m especially grateful that no one judges me when they hear me lighting one of my kids up with a tongue-lashing, from across the campus.  There’s just no hiding here.  Everyone knows your baggage, and all your quirky idiosyncrasies.  For instance, everyone here knows that if they come to our home after 5:00 PM, they better be prepared for the fact that I’m going to greet them at the door wearing an old T-shirt and boxer shorts.  They’re all just thankful that I’m not wearing tightie-whities…

The other night we couldn’t find Owen.  So we just walked out the door and yelled “OWEN!!”  pretty soon, I heard the Alexanders, yelling ‘Owen’, and then on up the line the call went.  Eventually, Owen got the message and came home.  Who needs cell phones?

Every Thursday night we get together and have a special time of music.  Then after, we pray for each other, the ministries here, the people we serve, and anything else that comes to our hearts.  It seems that we have been blessed with an unusual amount of musically talented folks.  Thursday nights and Sunday mornings, we are treated to amazing worship music.  There is a rotation of diverse and accomplished folks who share their gifts with us each week.

Here’s a snapshot of tonight.  The crew is a little larger than usual, as we have a talented family visiting as well, this week and helping out.

So the moral of my blog is that if you have an opportunity to join a ‘religious compound’, and said compound doesn’t have any plans to jump on a giant UFO after drinking cyanide, then I really recommend you go for it.

Photo of the day:

Heidi and I hiking in Pico Bonito National Park, Honduras

Almost done…